Tea meetup at a Bangkok Chinatown shop, Jip Eu

 

I've let the subject of tea tastings go for quite awhile, aside from holding one in Honolulu this year.  But a Bankgok Tea Tasting theme Facebook group I started has seen more members join this year than ever before, so it made sense to try to meet some of them.  I was going to my favorite Bangkok Chinatown shop to replace an aged sheng cake (Xiaguan) anyway, so I announced the visit as a meetup in that group.

Four others met with me for a pleasant tasting session there; their participation made the event work.  Writing about it is in part about communicating more to them about what we tried, what the teas were, and leads for buying similar teas.  Of course my main thanks go to Kittichai and his wife, the Jip Eu shop owners, for serving as the actual hosts; he was kind enough to share samples of several teas for us, and to keep pouring rounds for two hours.  For me it's always like visiting an aunt and uncle there, which makes buying good tea at great value all the more pleasant.

Conversation points

This is mainly about the teas, adding more about what they are, and reference links, but I wanted to also pass on the feel of discussion, even though I'll cite very little of it.  It's always interesting starting out with what people already like and experience of teas.  A good lead on visiting shops in Little India came up, but I've lost track of those details; maybe at the very back of Phahurat Market?  There's more on that area here.

Brief discussion of willow herb came up, aka Ivan Chay, a rare tisane type that can be oxidized.  I've tried some really nice versions of those, mostly from Moychay, and other novel and pleasant pressed mixed tisane bars.  It would be more odd that willow herb and tisane blends never caught on if decent tea wasn't also slow to gain acceptance.

From there lots of short tangents related to the teas we tried came up, so I'll skip on to that.

What we tried

2006 CNNP (/ Zhongcha) 8001 sheng pu'er:  later I was thinking about how the tasting theme went from heavy to light and back to heavy, kind of unusual.  I think maybe we had stopped by in the middle of two others trying this aged sheng pu'er, which is characteristic for one style (a bit heavy, earthy, slightly rough-edged for being this far through fermentation, definitely intense).  

Readers may think back to trying 17 year old sheng pu'er versions that seemed pretty fresh to them, still including bitterness, not fully transitioning from earlier slightly harsh range onto milder earthiness.  Storage input plays a big role, along with the initial starting point; Bangkok is as hot and humid as anywhere, pretty close to Malaysian storage.  It's not exactly like 20+ years in Hong Kong or Taiwan, but at least fermentation level is equivalent to that.  

I own part of a cake of this tea, reviewed here.  Note that I reviewed that 4 years ago, when it was 13 years old; those extra years of transition since have made a lot of difference.  Of the three more-aged versions--leaving out a Dayi purple label version in this discussion--I might like the CNNP the least, and see it as least refined, with heavy earth aspects that can come across as rough edges.  I've tried it in the last month or so, part of a normal routine of checking in, and it's good, but the other two I like better.  I have a spare cake of that Dayi sheng (reviewed here in 2020; it's better now too), but the Xiaguan runs a bit low.

silver needle style tea, from Fuding:  it came up that the range was a bit heavy, and Kittichai was nice to help switch theme back to the opposite extreme, brewing a pleasant silver needle version.  I didn't catch much for details; maybe this was partly aged, or maybe not.  My guess is that a slightly higher degree of initial oxidation than might be typical for the type added depth and heavier flavors, but both inputs (that and aging) could lead there, probably in slightly different forms.  It was really nice.  

It's hard to do a flavor-list review here by memory; plenty of mineral base stood out, it seemed quite floral, and there was at least one more aspect in there.  We weren't discussing teas in tea-tasting form, offering rounds of input about flavors and other experience, although more of that came up related to another version.

2022 Thai sheng (pu'er-like tea):  I brought some newish Thai sheng (not pu'er, to most, since that's a Yunnan-restricted designation), it seemed like a good time to try that, moving on to heavier but not exactly heavy range.  That shop specializes in Wuyi Yancha (Fujian rock oolong), and Kittichai has family roots in Wuyishan and Anxi, so trying Tie Guan Yin would also make sense.  We just didn't get to either.  To me Tie Guan Yin isn't the most interesting range, even though it can be pleasant, and it takes a lot of doing to get far with Wuyi Yancha, since you need prior exposure to place any given version, and to see how closely it matches your preference related to all the rest.  True of lots of tea types, I suppose, but with sheng my personal favorite we went ahead and tried a Thai version.

It was nice, fresh and sweet, intense, of course including plenty of bitterness.  There is a characteristic flavor range Thai sheng tends to cover, which I'd mostly describe as floral, but it seems possible that I'm missing one or two aspect descriptions that really pegs it.  I cover the source and reference a review in a later part about vendor background.  

It was fairly well received; people are often exposed mainly to young factory sheng versions instead, which can be a little more undrinkable.  Or to moderately aged versions, not onto optimum transition level yet, or to aged versions that don't express the full potential of the type range.  I suppose the CNNP version might've been guilty of that, but style and aspects relate to personal preference, and lots of aged sheng isn't "refined."

2006 Xiaguan 8653 sheng pu'er (full size cake):  this is what I was there to buy, and Kittichai offered us some to try.  I thought it was good.  It was better received by everyone joining.  To me it tasted a bit like aged leather, but another participant added that it covers a lot of the same scent range from smelling cigars in cedar storage, both the aromatic wood smell and the tobacco, which smells nothing like a burning cigar while in storage.  That really is it.  

I had tried the tea last about 3 days ago (after initially reviewing it last year), and it's much more refined than it had been just 6 months ago.  It has turned a corner in the aging cycle.  I bet in about 2 more years it will be really special, so that I should probably be buying a few of these, but my budget is fairly locked down these days, with the moving back and forth between Bangkok and Honolulu.

after a year more than half is gone; I'm drinking more than just to check on it

Vendor references

I wanted to add a few vendor references before this ran too long, related to what we tried.  Of course Jip Eu themselves are a great reference; all but one of those teas is from there.

Qing Fu Cha:  the owner of this online business, selling Thai sheng and Taiwanese oolong, joined with us.  I've tried some of their Thai sheng before (reviewed here) and it was quite nice, although I'll also mention other fantastic options for other versions.  Their FB page is here, and it's probably possible to find their teas in an online outlet shop, which Google search would identify if so.

Aphiwat:  a small local tea producer, selling Thai sheng, the source for that tea I brought (reviewed here last year, compared to one from Vietnam and to a version from Moychay).  I just ordered some from him today, which I suppose is tea blogger code for either that source's tea completely matched my preference or quality and value makes lots of sense, especially when I'm also listing other good source options here.  

An earlier review of a pressed cake version tells that story.  If I could live on only one tea version right now it would his, or Wawee Tea's.  I drank a 150 gram small cake in that first two-month stay in Honolulu, when my kids first started school there, and repeated that with another Thai tea I mention next on the next stay.

Wawee Tea:  a well-respected Thai sheng producer, who I wrote about here.  I've liked different things I tried from them, but one particular new version last year I couldn't stop myself from all but finishing in short order, almost a whole cake's worth in under two months.  

Mind you new sheng or the Thai sheng profile range isn't for everyone; Kittichai, the owner of Jip Eu, kind of gets it but doesn't love it like I do.  I don't think most versions are suitable for aging, and they would be fine, and a little different, a year or two later, but it's as well to burn straight through them.  You absolutely have to be ok with bitterness mixed with sweetness, and I definitely wasn't for the first half dozen years of trying sheng versions over and over.  Then it clicked.  I don't think there's any need to rush that, to see it as some higher form of preference; if you like it then you like it, and it's fine if you don't.

two of the teas I'm describing, compared with one from Vietnam

Moychay's Thai forest-origin initiative:  I might as well add a third exceptional source, related to Thai sheng I absolutely loved last year, this one, with more background on the source here.  It's possible that it's not quite as close a match to my preference as the other two versions, but in a way that's not fair, given that it was their initial production of the type, past early trials (or I suppose this maocha version was, but they're from about the same time).  

I bet they're right there with the other two producers already.  Wawee Tea has been a producer for decades, I think, and there are reviews in this blog of Aphiwat's teas from 2019.  My guess is that material quality is covered in their case too, that terroir and plant-type issues are dialed in.  All three versions were so similar, in such a narrow related style range, that it would take someone with plenty of exposure to notice differences and have a preference.  

those three teas

One thing I want to repeat to make it crystal clear:  the style of all three matches my own main preference; I don't mean to imply that these are better than teas from elsewhere, especially Yunnan, or even from Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, for that matter.  

Of course versions from the most valued narrow origin areas in Yunnan are superior in a few different ways, beyond better aging potential.  But if your preference matches mine something will really click when you first try a really good example, and your whole tea preference will shift a little.  If it's a first encounter with a tea with bitterness as a main aspect that probably won't happen, which is fine.

That Xiaguan cake must have been relatively undrinkable 17 years ago, when first produced.  Some other sheng versions hit an atypical fermentation transition "sweet spot" in the middle instead, softening and gaining depth without needing that decade and a half to be approachable.  But these two polar opposites seem the norm, to me, that sheng is often best within 2 years of being produced, or even right away, or only after nearly 20 years of very appropriate storage conditions input, or longer.  It was nice that we could experience that much of that range in just three versions in this outing.

Comparing Laos and Nepal white teas

Moonlight white lower left, Laos top, Nepal tea bottom left

This tasting was about getting to a few teas I've been meaning to try for awhile.  Anna of Kinnari Teas passed on teas at the end of last year, some versions that were sold as Kinnari teas and some that she had ran across in travels in Laos.  Her teas are great.  Laos teas are great, in general.  If this government initiative to support that industry works out you'll have broader access to try some, but don't hold your breath; SE Asian government projects take time.

Another friend, Somnuc Amnousinh, passed on some Laos teas I've written about as well.  He's not a vendor, just a tea enthusiast who gets out, and related to that he shared some great versions from Laos.  This black tea version works as a good example; it's a crying shame that anyone being able to order that tea online is only a distant dream.  If it sounds too good to miss then you need to get on a plane and fly to Laos.

The third is a Nepal tea, shared by a small producer friend there, Narendra Kumar Gurung.  His teas are produced through a Highlanders Farmers Private Limited tea-coop, which I said more about in this post, sold labeled as Barbote teas.  This review of a black tea version conveys how unique and well-made those teas are, just amazing they could be that good so early in their production history.  It's not as if he is new to growing tea though, and processing very good tea is nothing new in the local Nepal industry.  "Very good" is all relative; in this case I mean in the sense of not giving up much in terms of Darjeeling quality standards, or maybe as good but just different in style.  To me that's impressive.


It is nice knowing such interesting and diverse people through exploring tea interest.  Now that I think of it I've written about all three of these people in one other post about meeting interesting tea friends, here.

I've not actually met Narendra in person yet, and there really is an extra depth to that form of experience.  But it can still be nice sharing ideas through messages, and I've tried his teas, which have all been very nice.  It's probably luck of the draw as much as anything but all of the Nepal teas I've tried, not just his, were very pleasant, distinctive, and somewhat consistent in style ranges.  I won't add more about that background, though, since there's plenty of review to get to.

One of these is a Moonlight white and two are silver tips style teas (buds-only white, not so different than silver needle, but I take that to be a more type-specific reference).  It's odd comparing diverse tea types like that, just sharing being white tea.  The plan was for the contrast to make sense, for the Moonlight White to stand out for being type-typical and nothing like the other two, and then for them to make sense related to each other, with the contrasting descriptions as a base that fills in more about character.  It sort of didn't work out like that, but that's part of it too, seeing how things go.

Review

I used about a 30 second infusion time for the first round, which would be way too long for the shengs I've been drinking more of lately, but for these they'll just be getting started infusing in that time.

Laos Moonlight White (Kinnari Tea):  the tea is great, as expected.  It leans more towards spice than I thought it would, since I was expecting more fruit, but that works too, and the fruit will probably develop more over the next two rounds.  This is warm and earthy enough that it could easily be an aged tea version, it's just not, similar in some limited ways to a well-transitioned shou mei.  It's nice, distinctive and sweet.  As near as I can tell based on drinking a light initial infusion it's well balanced.  I'll do more with an aspect list next round.

I didn't take a picture of the dry teas before reviewing them, a bit of a lapse.  As memory serves this looked similar to Oriental Beauty in color scheme as these teas go, with dark, reddish, and brown leaf colors, not limited to silver and black as is typical for Moonlight White.  I really should take another photo since I have more at home, and may edit this to include one if I end up posting it before I do. 

I didn't do much with photos at all in this tasting; I'm not sure why not, since I am in the habit.  It probably related to family-originated background noise; I can't always wait for the kids to clear out somewhere to try and write notes about teas, and it's really hard to focus with piano playing, banging around, and screaming in the background.  It's like having wild animals in the house.

the sweet little noise makers out for pizza recently

Laos silver tip (or silver needle, if you like):  this is labeled "Yanchaw W;" I don't know what that part means).  For once this silver tips version doesn't taste vaguely like straw and flowers.  A good bit of spice comes across in this tea, even more so than in the Moonlight version, which included more spice than anything else.  Strange.  If anything the proportion is slightly lower for this white and it seems more intense than the Moonlight (although without weighing the teas that's just a guess, a guess that will be more informed once I see the fully saturated leaf volume, when it will still be just a guess).

I'm wondering if this wasn't contaminated by being stored too close to something else, the taste range is so unexpected and intense.  There were tisanes in that storage box too and one in particular was aromatic, an unusual form of compressed fruit tisane bar.  I had some pu'er and other long-term stored teas well isolated in a cabinet, and other samples and in-progress versions in a moderately sealed box in that same cabinet, and miscellaneous samples and boxes piling up all over the place, and my wife collected the strays into one storage box.  It would be odd if this whole review was about flavor the tea picked up along the way, and it's as much an actual possibility as a funny thing to say at this point.  These Laos sample teas from Somnuc were stored in plastic bags similar to ziplock bags, and those are a bit permeable, not a great moderate-term storage solution, and this has been around for a few months now.


Nepal silver needle:  this is interesting, distinctive, and pleasant; not on the weak side for being an initial round.  It does taste floral and like dried hay, so it is what I expect as a default from bud-only white teas, but a touch of unique range mineral seems to give away the Nepal origin.  There's a hint of citrus in it too, a dried peel that could be tangerine versus a sweet version of orange:  that's nice.  I'll leave off the longer descriptions to do a full list for all next time.

Laos Moonlight White left, Laos white middle, Nepal tea on the right

Second infusion

Moonlight white:  fruit isn't necessarily filling in yet but a nice savory sweetness similar to sundried tomato is.  That's primary; the spice range isn't as noticeable, and really at this point it requires imagination to split out the rest further.  Free associating a little to get to that:  milder spice is present, and some degree of light floral, but a sweet version of it, something like violet, or instead like a light version of lavendar.  Fruit is closest to dried apricot; to me that part does stand out.


Laos silver needle:  I hate to say it but this does taste like the spice in a tisane blend I tried not long ago, something really novel from Moychay, a pressed fruit bar that was quite heavy on spice (listed here with a description cut short since it's sold out).  This might be a rare case of an aborted review, leaving off as a warning about combined storage, especially if one of the teas isn't well-sealed.  Using ziplock style bags can be a problem; not much of the rest of how teas are stored is as open to being affected like that.  The tea is quite nice, for what that's worth; that hint of spice works well with the rest.  If it is natural it's a unique, positive aspect of this tea.  It's probably not (more guesswork), and most likely a happy accident that the flavor cross-contamination was positive.


Nepal silver needle:  the mineral, light floral, sweetness, hint of dried citrus peel, and dried hay all works together.  It's a distinctive profile that seems familiar.  I'd probably have to brew it stronger to draw out a thicker feel but it doesn't necessarily come across as thin, I've just accustomed to sheng lately, which are even more multi-dimensional.  I will let this run over another 30 seconds to get plenty of infusion strength out of it.


Third infusion

Kinnari Moonlight White:  more of the same, mainly savory, towards sun-dried tomato, with a bit of spice under that.  Or it could seem more like autumn forest floor:  warm, sweet, and rich, clean flavored but earthy.  Using either as a main flavor-range interpretation (or more likely seeing it as covering both for range) there's a hint of spice as well, closest to cinnamon, but also not so far off nutmeg.  Reviewers with a great imagination would add a lot to that, aspects like warm floral tone or rich berry, like blackberry, maybe closer to that than apricot in this round.  I thought it might be even fruitier but at least it does get to a little of that.


Laos silver needle:  I'm dropping this out of the review process; it tastes like warm spice and fruit, way too close to that Moychay tisane pressed bar.  Now that I think of it that tisane bar would be perfect for mixing with an inexpensive white tea to convert it to a flavored version.  To some that would seem like an unnatural act, way off their own preference, and I tend to not drink teas along that line much myself.  But it seems to work in this, and it's not even brewed together, seemingly just picking up a trace of flavor transferred across two layers of packaging.


Nepal silver needle:  the mix of flavors seems to evolve to include a bit of fruit.  The light tangerine peel aspect already was that, but it seems more pronounced and complex in this round.  It's a bit non-distinct, since it is coming across along with all the rest (mineral, dried hay, etc.), and since the profile extends to light floral too.  I'll guess out a range for that fruit as dried citrus fruit itself, versus the peel, maybe closest to blood orange, quite warm and sweet.

apparently I didn't feel like taking pictures that day

Fourth infusion


This will do for a final take; it's enough tea, even though these are probably only more or less half finished.  Using the longer infusion times would limit the count, so it won't make it to over a dozen as sheng tastings have (which brews a lot of tea too).  White teas are often durable related to what can be brewed from them compared to black teas.  Oolongs are in the middle; it just depends on the type.

Moonlight white:  other than fading a little the general effect is the same.  Even that change could result from a variance in infusion time, from not keeping track.


Nepal silver needle:  still in the same range, but the balance keeps shifting.  Mineral might be stronger than the rest in this round (a flinty / limestone sort of range mineral, lighter stone), with light citrus, dried hay, and floral tone standing out, more or less in that order.  It's quite flavorful as buds-only white teas go, in a range that's pleasant.

Conclusions

I really liked all three teas.  The Moonlight wasn't what I expected but it was nice.  For amounting to a tea storage glitch the Laos white was very pleasant.  I probably never will carry through on using that tisane for making a homemade blended version, mixing it with tea, but it would be great for that, and I tend to just not think along those lines.  I did mention in writing about it elsewhere (another story I'll get to) that the fruit tisane bar might work well for adjusting the flavor of a masala chai, doing a fruit-adjusted version of spiced tea.  That I might get to; it's interesting messing around with versions of those.

The Nepal tea was better than I expected, although I probably should've expected that character.   Buds-only whites so often come across as relatively flavorless to me that I don't start with high hopes but Nepal teas are often on the intense side, and Narendra's other versions have been really pleasant.  Someone with more exposure to Nepal white teas would've done more with placing that, comparing it to other range.  In the past I've been more of a fan of the really intense bud and fine leaf Nepal white versions, which can be heavier yet on citrus fruit with a cool mineral undertone, as Narendra's version of that type was.


Many thanks again to those three friends for sharing those teas.

at a local temple with a visitor recently

probably time to get back to a haircut theme

same week, same temple (Wat Pho), different visit

a photo with my wife and a very respected local monk

Comparing silver needle teas from Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam

Doi Inthanon left, Kinnari middle, Hatvala right

I'm comparison reviewing three white teas, all presented as silver needle style teas, from Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam (from Doi Inthanon, Kinnari Tea, and Hatvala, respectively).  It's a bit much.  I've been on a comparison tasting cycle lately and may as well stick with that, since it helps place teas better than tasting them alone would.  I'll be dropping it before long, maybe for a couple more types then I will.

There is a cost to that, a drawback and trade-off to doing comparisons, which came up in a comment on the last review, comparing Darjeelings.  If the tea plant type or style is different then the review could be more about noticing the style difference than the relative quality level of the teas, and subjective preference description can work out the same, more about type than how good either tea is.

I try to make those factors explicit in the reviews, to clarify when I think I prefer a type-related aspect, or when a set of aspects is uniquely positive in a tea within a range of one style, but there's a limit to that.  With a God's-eye view of tea types, related typical aspects, and characteristics tied to quality levels that would work better, especially if every tea stuck to a clearly defined type, but obviously all of that don't match reality.  Teas tend to vary.  In a sense it really doesn't even matter how close these three are to an original Chinese white tea version anyway; I'm experiencing them in relation to how much I like the aspects, not judging them related to trueness-to-type.

This would be a good place to introduce the teas, perhaps with a few more words at the end about the standard type and differences:


Doi Inthanon (Thailand, outside Chiang Mai):  Silver Needle #12 Bai hau cha - tra trang

Kinnari Tea (Laos) Moon Buds

Hatvala Vietnamese Floating Cloud White tea Yen Bai


This review is mostly about how I experienced the teas, not that background about any standard.  No vendor really claimed these closely matched a traditional Chinese version, and I'm not the best person to judge how well they did.

Review

Doi Inthanon lower left, Kinnari top, Hatvala lower right

The three teas look and smell quite different.  The Thai tea is much darker, with much smaller buds ("needles"), and a rich, complex scent.  The Laos version is the lightest, with a sweet, light, fruity scent, and the Vietnamese version is just a little darker than that and sweet but with a bit more of a savory edge to it.

The taste of the "silver needle" tea from Thailand, the Doi Inthanon Silver Needle, is a bit intense, perhaps closer to a black tea range than white based only first impression.  Of course white teas can oxidize to different levels based on processing differences, and this seems to have more than most.  That's not a good or bad thing, taken alone, just a variation; that just depends on how well it works.  I'll need to use short infusion time for this tea to limit the intensity, the opposite of what I expect from the other two.  It doesn't look like a silver needle tea at all, with much smaller buds than is typical, and quite a bit darker.  The dry scent is sweet and rich, heavy towards molasses and other earth tones, so I think it has lots of potential, it just won't match the typical profile, and it won't be subtle.

Tasting it the first round will involve tasting past an astringency balance that's a little high, but it's still positive.  It has an interesting citrus high note that stands out, and a great mineral intensive structure at the base, with lots of earthy range below that, the molasses, in general, maybe just not exactly that.  There's really a lot going on; it's partly floral, familiar from their other teas, and that molasses scent seems related to a woodiness in this particular infusion.  It all could be a little much for a white tea drinker looking for some subdued floral tones and maybe a little melon or whatever else mixed in; this is a little intense.  It'll review better brewed very lightly though, so I'll get back to all that.  That astringency even reminds me of pine needle tea, nothing like the bite in many other kinds of teas, a bit unique, coupled with a sharp, piney flavor element that's not negative, just quite different.

The Kinnari Tea Laos tea (Moon Buds) is subtle, as I would have expected.  It's sweet and complex though, with lots going on too, just in a completely different range.  Part seems like freshly dried hay, maybe a little floral, and that sweetness may well extend into fruity character, not so far from melon, maybe that.  I think there is some bright citrus going on too.  That citrus is so light and bright it's hard to pick a match for it, along the lines of tangerine peel spray, that citrus oil that comes out when you bend a peel.  I think it'll be easier to review on the next infusion for the opposite reason; it will take another round to really get going.  That contrast is funny.  The lightness and brightness is nice; it's not just light in the sense of being subtle, there is a bright character to it that's not easy to describe.  Someone might say "freshness" instead but to me brightness captures it.  It's a lot sweeter, or will be, once I get both of these teas brewing in a range that works for them.

The Vietnamese version (Hatvala Floating Cloud) is warmer, richer, a bit fuller.  Again this infusion is a little light for this tea; it will be easier to pin down going a little longer.  That first infusion was a bit over 30 seconds, probably still less than 45 though, long for this Gongfu proportion, but kind of normal for these types of teas that need longer to brew.  Or really the Doi Inthanon tea didn't need as long as it steeped; we live and learn.

It might not be easy to pin down the richness of this Floating Cloud even with optimized brewing; the main element seems closest to pine nut.  To me that's a really good thing, but I guess maybe not everyone loves pine nuts.  For people that haven't had them they're rich and a bit sweet, with a distinctive flavor, not so far from macadamia nut but not exactly the same.  They're a touch less creamy, but still creamy, and don't give up anything in being distinctive.  The warm aspect in this tea isn't so far from the fresh dried hay aspect in the Laos tea, they just head out in completely different directions from there, one to lighter, brighter and sweeter and the other to richer tones.  This is cool so far, and these teas have hardly gotten started.

the initial set-up

Second infusion

I went with a short infusion for the Doi Inthanon tea, around 15-20 seconds.  I think I'll go with the nicknames for these, instead of location, but this was only called silver needle (or bai hau cha - tra trang).  It's light but it works.  The sweetness and brightness stand out more, and that astringency steps back to a nice supporting level.  To be more specific it's not exactly astringency; it seems to both be a "feel" dimension and a related flavor element that seems connected with that, again close enough to pine needles.  For pine needle tisane lovers out there it's not light and sweet like white pine or hemlock (which is not the kind of plant that killed Socrates, it just shares the name), more like a Norway Spruce, a bit heavier and more intense.  It's like a light version of pine pitch.

The tea being sweet too makes that work.  The floral is still present but lighter, and something along the line of wood tones fills in some.  It might all work better than "wood, pine, and flowers" sounds, although really there would be a lot of range within those three description scopes.  There's a bit of a sage-like spice aspect filling in between that woodiness and pine that's nice.  It would too good a tea for blending with, and crazy to use it as such, but it would work well for part of the flavors base in a soup.

The Moon Buds (Kinnari tea) is still a little subtle, brewed for the same time again, in the range of 45 seconds.  I just can't measure infusion times; I'm philosophically opposed to it, but my internal clock works well enough.  There's something catchy about this tea, which I'm not going to do justice to by putting names on aspects.  It's bright and sweet, but not in a way that's familiar.  Maybe I like it more since I've been into first flush Darjeelings that emphasize brightness and sweetness, even though the character is a little different.

I should brew it for a full minute to let it go stronger, or a bit over that.  The package says 95C, 3 to 5 minutes (or was that a 7?), and of course part of going shorter on time is that I'm using a relatively high proportion of tea to water.  After 3 minutes at this proportion it would be as strong as a mild black tea in effect, but really some people would still like that.  I don't think it has enough astringency in it for that part to become a problem, but the flavor balance shift would let earthier elements play more a role and that light sweetness would drop back into a continuum of other aspects more.  I'll try it though; I can't add more to description here based on this tasting.  It's vaguely floral and citrusy, perhaps with a touch of melon, but there's more to it than that.  As for which melon, that part gets complicated.  I hate almost all melons but I like this flavor aspect, but maybe it's as well I don't expand on how that plays out.  Maybe it's not melon anyway, something fruity but slightly different, off towards apricot or plum instead.

The Floating Cloud (Hatvala tea) is still sweet but more in a richer, warmer range.  I will go a little longer on these two and describe them further for a third round.  The Doi Inthanon tea could probably handle a 30 second steep but not longer.

Third infusion

Screw the philosophy, I timed that last infusion, 30 seconds for the Doi Inthanon tea, 2 minutes for the other two.  To explain that part more, to me timing infusions puts more process between the tea drinker and the experience, as much as it standardizes and optimizes brewing.  I get it, about more people probably going the opposite way on that, but I like the minor variations in preparation, they are as informative as they are pleasant to experience.  And reviewing teas already adds a thick layer of analysis and interpretation to trying teas that I find disruptive.  It's interesting to do it, on a different level, but take away this blog communication step and I wouldn't really care to split flavors and other aspects into concept-lists like this.  Back to that though.


The Doi Inthanon tea is right at a level of intensity that works.  From here it's more about the balance of aspects working out for someone or not than dialing that in more.  It's woody, and floral, a sweet type of floral, with a bit of feel and taste matching pine needle, so more of the same.  The level of sweetness makes that work, but it's not as sweet as the other two teas.  The Kinnari tea is the sweetest, and brightest, but also the most subtle.  It's tempting to say the Hatvala tea is in the middle somehow but I'm not sure experiential space maps out like that.

The Moon Buds is picking up some warmth and depth brewed stronger, not giving up much brightness, but that aspect range is diminished for sharing some space.  The depth it gains is more in the range of sunflower seed, soft and sweet, a little rich, but still light.  I think it's a floral tone I'm not able to capture in description, as much as fruit, maybe spanning both.  It would be possible to try and focus on that dried hay / sunflower seed aspect and try to pin that down further too, and possible to interpret that in different ways.  It's hard to imagine that being read as mineral or spice tone but it's not inconceivable, really, or maybe I'm just missing something else.  The tea is a little subtle still but complex.

I haven't been saying much about feel or aftertaste (anything about those, really), but for me comparison tasting goes like that.  It works out to naturally truncate description for having so much space to cover.  A 2000+ word tea review is a bit much to write or read, beyond that extra being lots to focus on when tasting.  This tea isn't thin, and the taste does linger after swallowing it, but doubling the infusion time again would surely thicken the feel and add even more aftertaste.  It's a preference issue.  I always disliked silver needle style teas for being too subtle and not having enough dimensions but at the same time I prefer them on the light side, a bit of a contradiction.  To me--not a given, we're on what I think versus any standard understanding on this, best taken with a grain of salt--it shifts the aspect range going longer by pulling out richer, earthier flavors, at the expense of the lighter aspects, which don't drop out, but they do get crowded a little.

The Floating Cloud is similar to before, brewed stronger:  rich, sweet, a little subtle but with lots going on, with both brightness and earthiness.  The sweetness is in the range of both floral tone and honey, maybe with a trace of citrus, and that pine-nut aspect moves out to cover more range, but it gets harder to pin down.  I think I wouldn't have liked this tea as much a year or two ago for not really embracing the experience of related subtle teas, but I'm better with that now.  I've been drinking a good bit of compressed white teas lately, two shou mei cakes and some random pressed white version, and those are quite different--sort of--but the general range is not so far off.  This tea is definitely brighter than those, and more complex, with more going on at that higher end, the floral aspect, but not as bright and sweet as the Laos tea.  I think it's a bit richer and fuller than the Laos tea, maybe in feel too, but I really mean in flavors aspect range.

Doi Inthanon lower left, Kinnari top, Hatvala lower right

Fourth infusion

To push the teas a bit I went 40 seconds for the Doi Inthanon tea and three minutes for the other two (timed infusions; but I'm not going to switch over to embracing optimized brewing all the time).  They would drink just fine brewed lightly but this should help show what's going on with them better.  A full five minute steep might work to identify more about the structure, or really delve into all they have going on, but it wouldn't match my own brewing preference, at least not at this tea and water proportion.

The Doi Inthanon tea is fading just a little, although it's surely far from finished, it would probably go any number of rounds past this brewed longer.  The pine stands out a little for the rest dropping back a little, and the lighter feel works well, otherwise it's about the same.

The Moon Buds tea doesn't transition much, but it does pick up more earthiness, probably both from a natural aspects progression and from going longer on infusion time.  That one "catchy" aspect does remind me a little of that AV2 Darjeeling character, the smoothness and roundness coupled with sweetness, brightness, and melon / light citrus character (or some other fruit I'm not "getting").  Or maybe I've just described a set of aspects instead, even if to me they tie together somehow.  All of those things almost come to a central presentation point in one distinct but hard to describe bright flavor element.  At the end I can say how the Kinnari tea owner describes it as a list; she's pretty good with such things.

The Floating Cloud moves into an interesting space, transitioning the most of the three, towards a sun-dried tomato sweetness, a sweet and savory tone.  That was actually present in the initial dry tea scent but I wasn't noticing it so much in the other infusions.  I wouldn't be surprised if it would be possible to pull out a completely different type of experience from this tea by going long with infusion time initially, and maximize the savory tone that way.  The Kinnari tea would pick up more earthiness range in such an approach too, whichever way that sunflower seed element would present itself brewed stronger, but the Doi Inthanon tea wouldn't be as drinkable brewed any stronger.  This might be a good place to close this, to move onto some final thoughts based on those vendor's input.

Additional

This will only make for a token aside about traditional style, not from the most authoritative reference on the internet, but the related Baiho Yinzhen article in Wikipedia (the Chinese name for the general type) points out something worth noting:


Two regions, Zhenghe and Fuding, spanning the north to north-eastern parts of the Fujian province are the major and original producers of this tea, although neighboring counties have also been producing.[3] The two major cultivars employed by these regions are Fuding Da Bai and Zhenghe Da Bai, named after their origins. These differences are important to distinguish the two major styles of Silver Needles — the Zhenghe style and the Fuding style. The former is usually a lot darker, with significantly longer piled-up time for oxidation, yielding a tea with fuller body than the latter style, which is generally lighter with shorter oxidation.[5] 


It wouldn't have mattered to me how much these varied from traditional styles, and I'm still not really pointing towards a connection in noting that, although a guess about plant types does follow.

Related to vendor descriptions, there is no vendor description of the Hatvala version on their site, but one does appear here (edited):


...from Suoi Giang in Yen Bai province.  This is a hand crafted tea that undergoes an extended sun withering followed by gentle stirring and drying... Made from leaf buds only harvested from wild tea trees that grow in the ancient bio-diverse forests at altitudes above 1400 metres... Floating Cloud is both elegant and complex and produces a delightfully sweet tea with notes of honeysuckle, sugar cane, walnuts and pine forest. 


None of the aspect descriptions match completely directly but the general description really does (eg. swapping out walnuts for pine nuts, interpreting sugar cane as honey).  I think the tea is quite good; the general impression matches too.

Moon Buds description (not as clear due to a branch in branding)

I didn't see any description of the Doi Inthanon tea, but this graphic lists some background on the Moon Buds version (listed as White Wings; it's possible different years' versions picked up different names, or it could just be a split in branding).  Again it sort of matches what I've described, just not directly.  Brewing it light I'd pick up less texture, although "buttery" is surely intended as a flavor here.  The mineral side would stand out more brewed even stronger too (I love "pebble" as a description though; I never can really sort out different rocks as aspects).  Citrus I'd mentioned, and the fruit I never did pin down, describing it as melon perhaps towards plum or apricot.  Incense:  maybe!  It really did have a lot going on.


It's probably as well to not stretch this out but I think all three are grown at significant elevation, with both the Kinnari Tea and Hatvala tea from older natural growth environments.  Not only would the Doi Inthanon tea be farm-produced (a typical row-planted, single, selected plant type) it's probably not similar in type to the other two.  I'd be speculating to say they are both from Assamica type plants but I think they are.  More "native" versions in the North of Vietnam and Laos are, per my understanding (only native in the sense of being introduced a long time ago, most likely).  That would explain the buds size differences, smaller for the Thai version, relatively similar in appearance for the other two, just a bit different in initial color.  So it's back to the idea of comparing apples and oranges I started on initially, related to the Doi Inthanon version, but then the review was clear on that in descriptions too.

All three were nice anyway, with a lot of complexity and interesting character from all of them, I just preferred the Laos and Vietnamese teas' styles more.  There was a time when the overall subtlety of those wouldn't have matched what I like in teas so well but now I'm more on that page, maybe not in terms of overall type favorites, but related to what I can really appreciate.  Those two teas were fantastic, so similar but so different, in different senses.  The Thai tea is still nice, well worth checking out, and positive enough that someone with a different style preference still might like it more, if having a bit more edge to the tea somehow seemed better.  As I mentioned in that last post related to Darjeeling types I tend to prefer oolongs and soft, complex black teas (Dian Hong and such), but it makes perfect sense for someone to like a bit more astringency than I do to balance other aspects.


One last aside:  I've been stocking up on gaiwans lately, so I now have three each of smaller and larger size versions for reviews.  I went with the larger ones for this tasting and it was a mistake; it took me all day to come down from the buzz of drinking around 18 cups of white tea.

Silver Yeti silver tips style tea from the Nepal Tea Company

This tea was provided by the Nepal Tea company as silver tips, which relates to their Silver Yeti tea (with no mention of the estate / original source).  They sell a second really interesting looking white, a White Prakash by Kanchanjngha Tea Estate, which seems different in style.

I've reviewed teas from this vendor before, a Kanchanjangha gold tips and green tea here, and a black and oolong here.  Odd I was doing paired reviews like that, but somehow it made sense at the time.  Those were nice, good quality teas that were a bit unique in style, so it will be nice if this is more of the same.

It has nothing to do with these but I've also reviewed two other teas from Nepal in the past year or so, a Himalayan Orange and Shangrila White, again solid teas, unique and positive in character to say the least.  So I guess I like teas from Nepal.  It's odd how broad the range of styles they are developing extends.  Some are a lot like Darjeeling, which is relatively nearby, and some are quite novel.

Review

The tea has small needles, on the darker side, with a sweet, rich smell.  My take is that darker needles can relate to more oxidation occurring during the preparation process (not a bad thing, just one style / outcome), or to a tea darkening through aging.  Either way it's not necessarily a good or bad thing; the brewed tea itself tells that part of the story.

The taste of the brewed tea is bright, rich, sweet, and full, right in the normal range for good versions of white tea.  The main aspects in terms of flavor are floral, a typical, pleasant outcome.  I'm not remarkably good with floral scents but it might be in the range of lavender, perhaps a little lighter, with sweet and more neutral flower scents in that range also relating to different types of orchids.  "Under" that flavor range there is the typical warm, neutral tones typical of silver needle style teas, dried hay and sunflower seed.

I've been off this page for awhile, similar white teas, so I'll need to refer back a few months for comparison.  I have been drinking a couple of Bai Mu Dan style whites quite recently, one from China and one from Sri Lanka, but those are quite different, richer in a sense but more subtle in a sense, without the same pronounced floral aspect.

Brewing the tea just a little stronger changes that profile a little.  I'm preparing it Gongfu style so it's easy to shift time around, from a relatively short infusion time of 15 seconds or so up to a bit over 30.  A tea like this really would produce a comparable outcome made in a more Western style, dropping the proportion of tea to water and increasing brew time to 2 to 3 minutes (or longer, depends on preference), but you miss a bit in experiencing aspects transitions.  The floral aspect remains, still pronounced, but light mineral undertones strengthen, something like limestone (hard to pin down since one only smells rocks, not taste them).  The dried hay / sunflower seed doesn't pick up in the same proportion, dropping back even more into the background.

It seems a nice white / Silver Needle style tea.  As a baseline, a version from Indonesia (from Bangkit Wangi, reviewed here) might have showed a slightly stronger bright floral aspect, in a very similar range, maybe a little sweeter, but both are nice for that same aspect.  It's impossible to compare the range of supporting aspects; my taste memory is better than my memory of names or phone numbers, by a lot, but I don't retain that level of detail.  I scanned through the Bangkit Wangi white tea review and it sounds pretty close, but I'm not far along with this one just yet so it could change.

coloring reminds me of oolongs I've been drinking

The next infusion tells a similar story, with flavors transitioning from the bright, sweet floral to that combined with a nice range of other aspects.  The profile transitions more to that clean, mild mineral range. A different interpretation of a similar flavors range would identify it as a very mild muscatel, and the tastes complexity does extend across a good range.  The mineral moves from limestone into struck flint.  I love the smell of struck flint, by the way, although I have to go back to the early parts of my life to reference it.  It wouldn't work nearly as well without that sweetness and floral aspect, and the rich depth from the hay / sunflower seed aspect, which comes across as a clean, integrated, sensible range.

Next infusion, more of that same shift.  I think it might work better than it sounds.  That mineral taste couples with a cool feel, a hint of both the taste and reaction your mouth experiences when you suck on a penny, but only a hint of that, so it works.  There's an odd way that the experience passes across your tongue, with that feel I just mentioned occurring on the sides in the back, which transitions to a mineral aftertaste.

This might well be a relatively more oxidized version of a white tea, but I wouldn't really be able to say that with certainty, it's more a guess.  The brewed tea color is a bit dark for the tea type, not the light golden yellow but a dark golden yellow instead.  That is subdued in light infusions but the color difference is still evident.  I wouldn't really say that the taste experience and general effect is closely leaning towards a black tea, since it's completely different, but it might move towards a distant version of common ground, in some senses.  Along that line it shares aspects in Darjeelings though, not an Assam, Ceylon, or Chinese black tea.  It makes sense, since regional characteristics are closely tied (it's nearby, some tea plants are common to both), so of course it does.  Darjeeling is also made as either white tea or versions that fall in between those basic Chinese oxidation-level styles, so a white tea with a bit of oxidation would be similar.

How would I know if the tea hadn't been affected by storage, instead of oxidation being the only factor in that slightly darkish color and flavors shift?  It's a good question, but one I probably shouldn't even be asking.  I've kept previously opened silver needle for a good while before, over a year, due to just misplacing a version.  In that case I've seen an example of how those changes go, but it wouldn't be fair to extrapolate based on so little.  Doing just that anyway, the tea darkened in that case, and the flavor did shift, not losing a lot in terms of brightness or sweetness wearing off but more related to picking up depth in other aspects.

tasting assistant, not much help today

From there it just seems to fade slightly over many transitions, not changing further.  The general effect shifts a little within the same range as longer infusions are required to draw out taste, relatively common across the range of different styles, although some teas do shift at the end more.  The tea is quite nice, a good example of the type.  There was a time when I didn't really love silver needle style teas, more about just not relating to the aspects range than taking issue with any, but now I get it.

This was supposed to be a simple tea review, covering familiar ground in a quick tasting and write-up.  Oh well.  I still have a couple more samples from this vendor so I'm not off this regional subject yet.

Bankit Wangi silver needle style tea

Another great Indonesian tea!  They actually call this tea silver hairy buds (with more about Bangit Wangin on Facebook, here) but it would be typical for marketing to reference silver needle,  even though some reserve this as a partially regional designation.

The dry tea is very aromatic, sweet and floral, with just a little muscatel.  This seems to be a typical profile for Indonesian silver needle style white teas (the floral part), but it's no less positive for resembling others that I've tried, and it might be that extra bit sweeter and more floral.

large, silver, "hairy" buds

The taste is sweet, floral, and full, with a notable smooth, rich feel.  The primary taste is familiar,  floral in the range of a light smooth lavender (but then, for the millionth time, I'm better with other scent-memory than flowers).  Beyond that there is some complexity of flavors going on.  The sweetness might vaguely resemble a light honey, but that doesn't seem to add much.  The difference between this and other Indonesian silver-needle style (buds only) white teas is that of intensity; this tea is really sweet and floral.


In terms of flavors it's all a bit subtle, not lending itself to writing out a list.   In fact I keep drinking it and I'm stuck on that point:  what else does this tea taste like?  I fell back on a tasting trick, thoroughly washing my palate with plain water to get a fresh taste.  Some of that mineral richness I've come to expect in Indonesian teas had been there.  Between that and the sweet floral aspects there is a rich flavor element, along the line of sunflower seeds.  I get a faint impression of spice but it's not clear enough to put a name to it.  Going beyond that I might just be daydreaming.  For as bright and sweet as the floral aspect is someone picking up fruit wouldn't seem unreasonable, maybe in the range of some type of berry, or tied to that muscatel scent element, I'm just not pinning that down.

Rodino!  a rare tea related visitor in Bangok

A friend visiting from Indonesia (Jakarta), Rodino, passed on the tea, along with a couple of others.  He just started writing a blog about tea himself, or really beverage themed in general.  I'll probably keep drifting back to the subject of Indonesian tea for having a friend on the scene there, a very good thing given how nice the teas I've tried so far have been.  It makes sense that agriculture would go well there based on how Indonesia looks (see related post on a trip there), a paradise for plant life, aside from the odd catastrophic volcano eruption, and even that must be great for the soil, once the devastation subsides from the more intense versions.


Giving this tea longer soaks over more infusions keeps bringing out lots of flavor, moving into clean wood tones, still sweet but less sweet.  The smooth fullness switches over to a more textured fullness, towards dryness but not dry, all aspects that work well together.  Some versions of white teas, silver needle-type styles in particular, can be a bit too subtle for me to enjoy as much as other types, just hinting at some mild earthy tones, but this was nothing like that.

no reference scale here but these are big buds

It might help to compare taste this with another Indonesian white tea, and I do have a bit of a couple left, even one type I never opened from that trip in December, but I didn't get to it around the time of the initial tasting.  An online friend visiting Bangkok gave me a good bit of this tea so I could, but instead I'll just compare based on tasting another later.

Comparison tasting with another Indonesian white tea, over different days

I tried the Toba Wangi silver needle style tea for comparison, just not side by side, two days later. I'll have a go at comparing based on memory.


It's less floral and sweet than I remember the Bangkit Wangi, but since a floral aspect is a main component there seems a chance they are more equivalent in this respect than I'm remembering.  The floral element is rich, sweet, and luxurious, just not as intense, and as usual hard to place by description.  I looked back to find an earlier review but apparently I'd only mentioned it in the post about a Bai Mu Dan style white from this producer, White Beauty (some good tea).


Beyond those aspects there's also a mild earthiness, which comes across a bit like chamomile, but much fuller and more complex, in part approaching the range of dried hay (in a good sense).  This played the same role as one closer to sunflower seeds in the Bangkit Wangi, just shifted a little in taste.


My general impression from this tasting is that it's in between those mild-flavored whites I was referencing, mild teas that you feel as much as taste, and the Bangkit Wangi in terms of really intense, distinctive flavors coming across, especially in that floral range.  It does have that full feel a lot of nice white teas have, in this case so pronounced it almost felt like a roundness, even though I'm not sure myself what that means.

I cold-brewed the tea, not able to put in enough infusions to finish it in a session, storing it in the refrigerator with warm but not hot water to be drank again the next day.  Somehow that really drew out a much more intense sweetness and floral effect, in the range of those sakura (cherry blossom) green tea bottled teas, but a bit better for being natural, and not based on green tea.  It made me wonder if the tea couldn't provide a range of different results based on variations within conventional brewing parameters.

Where was I going with this comparison again?  Regardless of that, these exceptional versions really have me coming around to silver needle style whites, but for Toba Wangi's teas I'd go with the White Beauty instead for novelty.  This does seem a natural place to close but since I was already discussing the Bangkit Wangi teas a little with Ronald, the plantation manager, I'll add a little more background on that tea, what might have led to it being so intense (for a white tea; they do tend to be subtle).

Input from the Bangkit Wangi owner about this tea

Ronald mentioned the Bangkit Wangi silver-needle style tea is based on Camelia sinensis var assamica and from Gamboeng clone.  It seemed really sweet and floral to me to be based on an Assamica type, but then I'm not as familiar with white teas as others related to different general type and cultivar origin inputs.  That does help explain how those buds could be so big.

He gave the following input that he felt contributed to the tea being as sweet and intense as it comes across (only edited slightly to keep this short):


1. The age of tea plant

Our tea plantation started in 1920’s by the Dutch people in which at that time colonized Indonesia, during that time the tea plantation is grown mostly in our region in West Java. During that time the root of our tea plan is already span deep underground to 5-8 meters. 


2. The water content 

Inside our plantation there lies a water source from the top of our plantation in which it drops down in veins through our plantation to then compile back to a water fall called Citamboer waterwall (Tjitamboer). 


These two seem to go together, don't they?  Strong, mature plants develop healthy supporting root systems, and these roots enable plants to take advantage of natural irrigation paths within the ground.  This distribution would surely both filter the water and add minerals to it.


3. Organic practice

Our plantation recieved an organic certification in 2007...and at this time we don’t use any pesticide whatsoever.  We found out that the plant itself is getting stronger in battling their common enemy such as pest and wild bushes and weed.  So by looking at this we can be sure that the tea itself is building their own immune in battling the common pest and also fighting for nutrients from common wild bushes to feed the young bud leaves.

This last idea is one I've heard claimed of Wuyishan area teas as well, that only the strongest plants survive the various external challenges, and that supporting the plants by providing a pest-free environment throws off the natural balance, and can impact the taste of the teas.  Who knows, really, but it's also familiar from the case of Bai Hao / Oriental Beauty teas that a seemingly negative input of insects biting plants' leaves can potentially have positive effects in the outcome of teas.

Another interesting idea we didn't discuss, that tends to come up, is that the influence of other types of plants can change flavors in tea plants growing in close proximity.  Again, who knows, but somehow all these factors together did work towards creating some exceptional characteristics.  Processing is another significant factor, with this plantation drawing on roughly 100 years of experience.  Maybe that's not so long by Chinese standards but plenty of time to sort out making some very nice tea.

Comparing Indonesian and Thai Silver Needle White Teas

Finally on to tasting one of the more interesting teas I picked up in Indonesia, a silver needle white tea from Wonosari plantation, in Eastern Java.  Two other posts go into some more background on there and those teas, but the short version is that it's a government associated, Dutch influenced tea plantation.  At least true per what little I've read or heard; without their own reference material, or a website, or more direct communication from them that's not confirmed.

The other tea is a Thailand originated Lana Silver Needle tea from Monsoon teas, a tea shop in Chiang Mai, Thailand, with this sample provided by them.  Per usual the combined tasting format was to help identify subtle character differences better, which stand out better in comparison.

Monsoon Thai silver needle left, Wonosari Indonesian right

Review

The teas look quite different.  The Indonesian silver needle looks like I would expect, silver-white individual buds, while the Thai Lana silver needle tea is a light greenish color.  I've read critiques of white teas described as not being true white teas based on using different processing, with different outcomes, but that is not familiar enough for me to address it here, and I didn't research it further for this post.

The Wonosari Indonesian tea had an unusual smoke scent, with a pleasant rich sweetness beyond that.  The Thai tea smelled sweet as well, but with a vegetal scent beyond that, in between the light, subtle-earth scent of white tea and a profile more common to green tea.

Wonosari tea; nice and silver

The first taste of the Indonesian tea was essentially just smoke.  Actually the first few infusions were like that, overwhelmed by it.  After two or three I was able to try and taste past it, and the tea seemed to have a full, rich feel to it, and good sweetness, with the typical subtle earthy / light floral flavors of a white tea, towards chrysanthemom or chamomile, but less explicitly floral.


The smoke kind of worked, after the first infusions, when it had diminished, it just seemed a really odd idea to be drinking a smoked white tea.  As many infusions passed it faded out and more rich, sweet flavors came to the fore; a really nice white tea.  One of the distinctions between good white teas and better ones has seemed to be the feel of the tea, and this one is full and smooth.

packaging; a filler picture

So the comparison idea didn't work out so well, given that one aspect, smoke, colored the effect of that tea so much.


The Thai silver needle tea was nice, but different than I expected.  As with the scent some flavor elements resembled green tea.  The vegetal character didn't resemble grass, or spinach or peppers, none of that typical range, but it was close to green hay.  If that's not familiar, it is a pleasant, relatively neutral, soft vegetal element.  If you happen to walk through a field of growing hay give it a smell; and try pulling out the top green flower top from the bottom of the stalk, and taste the soft, rich part growing inside; quite tasty.


The tea itself had none of the astringency common to green tea, not even a start in the feel of the body.  It was even a bit thin, really, not a problem for me since I don't value white teas for the feel as much as that seems more crucial to some other types, presented differently in those.  It wouldn't have stood out so much but the Indonesian tea seemed much fuller in body in comparison, and a bit sweeter.

Monsoon left, Wonosari right

Both teas brewed lots of infusions, somewhat consistently, beyond the smoke element dropping out for the Wonosari tea.  The feel of the teas changed a good bit as I increased brewing times to compensate 8 or 9 infusions in, along with the effect and presentation of the flavor profile.  The Thai tea picked up a bit of astringency comparable to that in a black tea, just a much lighter version.  The Wonosari tea really didn't; it stayed quite smooth and went to a fuller feel rather than changing in that way.  All this reminds me of an interesting aside, which I'll add after this part.


As for final conclusions, it seemed without that smoke the Wonosari tea may well have been a really nice example of a silver needle tea.  It still worked well for me, and even the smoke was interesting, especially experiencing it dropping out.  It combined with the other elements in different ways as it faded, while the other aspects didn't change as much.  I could imagine other people taking that differently, more negatively.  It's odd to smoke a white tea, and it would seem likely that wasn't intentional.  Or maybe it was.

The Thai tea was nice.  Again a tea purist might have been put off by the deviation from normal silver needle character, in terms of flavor profile, and the thinner feel of the tea, but to me it was still quite nice, maybe even interesting for being different.

Aside about varying brewing time and tea strength:

In the past I've noted how white tea brewing suggestions tend to fall into two completely different sets (more on general brewing guidelines in this post), with one standard preparation method calling for relatively long brewing times (based on Western style brewing), of 4 to 5 minutes.  The other approach prepares the tea very lightly, more conventional for a gongfu approach, although really someone could brew tea Western-style very lightly and gongfu-style as strong tea, using longer times.

It's odd how the different proportion of tea to water comes into play, so that a white tea brewed as a strong version might infuse for 4 to 5 minutes for Western-style brewing, and still under a minute for gongfu style.  For a lighter version infusing Western-style for 2 minutes might do, and gongfu style only 20 seconds, or one could drink a very wispy version flash-infused, in contact with the water only as long as it takes to pour it in and then back out.

same teas, brewed stronger

It all depends on preference, doesn't it?  That's true, but it can be unsatisfying just leaving it at that.  I recently read a great related comment on a tea group thread that added lots of detail, what the difference in effect would be (not just that the tea would be lighter and stronger, I mean).  The discussion was in the The Great World Tea Group, kind of newer and smaller as Facebook tea groups go, but I guess typical of those.  To me they are either somewhat exclusively about pu'er or not; this one not (or some about Darjeeling only, to be fair).



Kirk O'Neil, the group owner, raised this question:


I don't know how people can drink any tea that's too light; it confuses me.  Sometimes I see gongfu brewed tea brewed lightly.  I like strong brewed teas except for most strong brewed young shou (ripe) puerh.  Is weak brewed tea being not as enjoyable as strong brewed tea a bad thing?  Is it a good thing I enjoy strong brewed tea?


To be honest I'd love to see more discussion of tea in a tea group anywhere, so I'm impressed that Kirk would share his own preference to initiate a discussion.  It's all too easy for the comments to drift towards "you are wrong," even in cases clearly related to preference, like this one.  I help moderate a different FB tea group, and I post different random things there, but even I don't usually address questions like that outside this blog content.

Christmas!  but nothing to do with tea

One response was more interesting and insightful than the others, by Thomas Smith, someone I have talked about tea a bit with online, and he's got a fairly developed take on things:


It is a matter of preference per focus. Lighter intensity and body allows a much wider range of flavor elements to be perceived, though they may be too light to be appreciable to some. Steeping longer will truncate flavor range to just a handful of easily identified characteristics, reduce number of total infusions that may be yielded, reduce spread of flavor deviations between infusions, hamper expression of sweetness and aromas, and promote potential astringency. The payoff is heavier impact of the relatively smaller set of flavors, increased viscosity, and greater consistency or reliability of cup character. 

Those who enjoy Assam, Yunnan, and Fujian red teas and many quick adopters of Shú Pǔ'ěr and similar accelerated-fermentation dark teas may gravitate to longer steep times both out of familiarity and from these teas not really offering much on the light approach compared to the texture payoff in protracted infusions.


Next level deeper analysis, right?  Does it match your experience?  I've noted in this blog that lighter tea brewing can actually allow for separating flavor elements better, so the main point I completely agree with.  For a white tea this variation in infusion time and strength seems even more pronounced, emphasizing completely different elements, not just shifting how they come across.

Wonosari plantation; outside Malang, East Java

Other factors also relate, including a learning curve for preference (or preference curve, if one would rather), related to appreciating different aspects of a tea.  Somehow it seems like preferring stronger tea first and gravitating towards lighter is natural, but of course it's not that simple either.

There is an underlying assumption that one would want to optimize brewing to suit their own preferences, but I don't necessarily end up there.  I experiment with brewing a lot just to see what it changes, sometimes even infusion to infusion.  That contradicts the appreciation of the "flavor deviations between infusions," as Thomas put it, at the core of what many tea drinkers regard as an essential part of the experience.


This would be a good place for a summary wrap-up, maybe something like "to each their own."  As I see it the beauty of the experience of tea is that it does keep going, new experiences, changing understanding, varying preferences, with change and diversity a big part of the appeal.  Of course, to each their own; others might figure out what they like and tend to stick with that.